The SpaceX Rocket & Other Sci-Fi Technologies That Would Be Awesome To Have

Over the holidays, Elon Musk’s SpaceX company and its Falcon 9 program brought its first stage booster of an orbital rocket back to the ground. But the amazing thing is it landed right side up as if it were taking off, right dead center of the launching pad.

The video of this is pretty awesome and SpaceX has also released some great pics of the whole event…

The vertical landing was made possible through the technology of onboard ‘sensing’ software. It’s pretty insane — considering it’s basically a 12 story building landing right side up after having traveled at about 3,500 mph, and landing back in the center of the X.

That means it had to slow down, turn around, fall towards earth, then refire the engines to land properly.

Sci-fi technology like this brings out the major nerd in me and what SpaceX has accomplished is nothing short of astounding. So it got my sci-fi daydreams going and thinking about other sci-fi technology we’d all like to have today.

Neuralyzer

How amazing would it be to pull a Men in Black on people and zap their memories? Every dude in the world would use this daily on his girl… or parents, or actually everyone.

The Replicator

Star Trek had some cool sci-fi gadgets, but maybe the coolest most practical was The Replicator. Yes, a machine that replicates anything (mainly food) as long as it has the original source material. Some scientists actually think that nanotechnology can make The Replicator a reality. No more TV dinners for me…

Coming Back From Cryonic Suspension

For a short period of time, a human can be brought back to life after being frozen – of course, not frozen solid, but being submerged in something like freezing waters for a short period. The biggest problem with cryogenics is your brain dies. And there’s no coming back from that.

Lightsaber

Every kid (and adult) has wanted a lightsaber since first seeing them on screen. Unfortunately, they do not exist and the science behind them just doesn’t work in the real world. So we are forced to just pretend with a flashlight… which is still kinda’ cool.

Self-Driving Car

While there are some self-driving cars in existence, they are kinda’ boring and not like the badass sci-fi vehicles we’ve seen time and again in movies. Because those are the self-driving cars we really want.